Secret Sauce Partners — we're not your typical start-up. Our business isn't based on the premise that if we build it, they will come. We don't spend our afternoons around a foosball table. And we don't build products with blinders on, hoping we can build markets around them.

So what is Secret Sauce?

We're an experienced team of start-up entrepreneurs and engineers who know that the surest path to long-term success is to do our homework before we write a single line of code. That's why we developed a unique methodology to uncover under-served needs in large, proven markets, enabling us to develop the game-changing solutions that people crave. We also know that while an idea and passion take you a long way, it's the business acumen and solid execution that put you on top.

Fit Predictor for Apparel

According to a 2010 SSP study, 63% of shoppers find it difficult to purchase apparel that fits well. Return rates online are 20-30% due mainly to poor fit.
Fit Predictor finds a shopper’s best fit in seconds using data mining techniques on data retailers already have - without the need for physical measurements.
Launched in 8 global markets including the US, the technology has been proven using A/B testing to increase conversion and reduce returns.
Fit Predictor is omni-channel, supports 1400+ brands and over 1 million shoppers.

Leadership

Peter Orban – Peter’s 20 years experience as a marketing and advertising exec for Young & Rubicam and Wunderman in New York, Singapore, Hong Kong, Budapest and London across multiple product categories brings unparalleled insight into understanding and influencing consumer behavior to the Secret Sauce team. His expertise in developing new products and market segments is key to our strategy of using deep customer understanding to not only gain traction in the marketplace but also to build the best products in each segment. Peter has successfully orchestrated global campaigns for – and has participated in the product development process of – companies such as Colgate-Palmolive, Ford Motor Company and Philip Morris.

Zoli Piroska – Zoli is a serial entrepreneur with six start-ups under his belt. Most recently Zoli founded and was CEO of Greener One, a point-of-purchase eco-ratings service for mainstream consumer products. Prior to founding Greener One, Zoli led MoodLogic (acquired by All Media Guide, now part of Rovi), a digital music company based in San Francisco. As part of a turn-around team, Zoli devised and executed a strategy that made the debt-strapped company profitable and led to its successful exit. Earlier, Zoli led sales and business development for another digital entertainment startup, OneBigCD/Amplified Holdings. He also served as Director of Operations for CyberCash, where he managed the company's online payment service. He co-founded two startups while still at university, including USMall, Inc., which owned some of the most successful web sites in the mid 1990s as well as Agri-Marketing Group, a food commodity trading firm.

Gabor Ratky – Gabor has been involved in start-ups since, at the age of 17, he developed LyricsAMP, the number one downloaded plug-in for the digital music application Winamp 3. He was quickly recruited to MoodLogic by Secret Sauce Partners co-founder Zoli Piroska, where he assumed a key role in the product’s re-design and re-architecture, which was instrumental in selling MoodLogic software for inclusion on all Sony Vaio desktop computers in the US and Europe and integration in other Sony software. He later joined Zoli as the Chief Architect for Greener One. Most recently, Gabor served as a Senior Software Engineer at EPAM, a company providing offshore engineering services. At EPAM, Gabor led numerous R&D projects for Microsoft Corporation and has spoken at numerous Microsoft development conferences. He was the Lead Developer of the open source AddOn Studio for World of Warcraft (http://addonstudio.codeplex.com), an IDE for AddOn developers, and TweetCraft (http://tweetcraft.codeplex.com), an in-game Twitter client for World of Warcraft. He also co-authored a chapter in the Coding4Fun Book. Gabor also worked as a Development Lead for UBS AG, Europe's second largest bank and helped bootstrap the offshore operations of its Fixed Income, Cash & Collaterals IT group in Kiev, Ukraine.

Claudia Ricker – Claudia has 10 years business development and marketing experience ranging from startups to large cap companies.
Her experience includes business development for the North American market at Resources Global Professionals (NASDAQ: RECN),
a global corporate solutions provider and marketing and product development at Market Platform Dynamics,
an MIT Sloan affiliated innovation advisory to large-cap companies. She was also a founding member of the US office of NET,
a European-based localization startup.

Engineering

Laszlo Bacsi – As the co-founder of budapest.rb, a monthly Ruby on Rails meetup in Budapest, Laszlo brings a wealth of expertise in Ruby, Javascript, PHP, and Java to the company. He's always interested in creative uses of new and old technologies, always playing with something new.

Balint Erdi – Balint has been in and out of web development for the last eight years, picking up domain knowledge in e-commerce, blog advertising, and financial indicators, among other things. He's a passionate type and is always in love with the latest platform, methodology, tool, or programming language. His colleagues call him the Agile God, but he thinks they are just buttering him up. He declares jumping on board the Secret Sauce team was the best professional decision he has ever made. You can follow his thoughts on all things technical at Codigo Ergo Sum.

Zoltan Prekopcsak – Zoltan is an experienced data analyst who is finishing a PhD in data mining and collaborating with renowned scientists from Canada, Spain, and the Czech Republic. After working on projects in fields including telecommunications, financial modeling, and neuroscience, he finally finds Secret Sauce a place where great ideas, practical research, and hard work evolve to truly unique products.

Andras Tarsoly – Andras is a long-time IT and Internet professional with broad development and online media management experience. He brings his expertise to Secret Sauce's front-end systems design and development.

Advisors

Paul Cheng – Paul is the Vice President of Corporate Development and the Head of North America for Velti, a leading global provider of mobile marketing and advertising solutions with a global reach of 2.5 billion customers in 30 countries. He has previously held executive roles in Technology Partners, Gamma Telecom, Asylum Telecom, and Graphisoft SE.

Lars Kamp – Lars heads the San Francisco-based Accenture Strategy Practice group for Communications and High Tech. He consults Fortune 500 and Dow Jones 30 technology companies on technology architecture, business models, and social media strategy. Lars serves as an advisor to several start-ups in the wireless and online media industries.

Todd Parker – Todd is the Managing Director of Hidden River, a corporate development and finance advisory firm to technology, media, and telecom companies (over 100 transitions). Prior to Hidden River, he was the Co-Founder and CEO of HR One. Todd was also the General Manager and Vice President of New Product Development for AirTouch Paging, and was the Managing Director of M&A for AirTouch Communications ($13.5 billion merger with U.S. West).

Ron Weissman – Ron is a Partner at Apax Partners, a global private equity firm with $20 billion under management. He is the Chairperson of Special Industry Groups for Band of Angels, Silicon Valley's oldest seed funding organization. He was previously the Vice President of Strategy and Corporate Marketing for Verity. Ron chairs the Emerging Technologies Forum of the Venture Capital Task Force. He is also an Overseer of the University of Pennsylvania Libraries.